Jake Bright Contributor Jake Bright is a writer and author in New York City. He is co-author of The Next Africa. More posts by this contributor Africa Roundup: African startup investments turn to fintech this winter season Nigeria’s Piggybank.ng raises $1.1M, announces group investment product Weeks after French President Emmanuel Macron unveiled a $76M African startup […]

Evernote made a name for itself as the platform where you could store your ideas and notes for life, and beyond. But the same permanence does not apply to the people who work there. We’ve confirmed through multiple sources that Linda Kozlowski, Evernote’s COO, has put in her notice and will be leaving the company by the end of this year. It’s the latest in a series of… Read More

Despite the headlines you may see today, President Obama already has a verified Facebook page. It’s this one: facebook.com/barackobama/. Obama launched another Facebook page for himself today, this time the official POTUS Facebook page. “Hello, Facebook! I finally got my very own page,” the President wrote on the page. Confused? So are we, but this is in line with the… Read More

Ahmed Mohamed has accepted an offer from the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development where he will join the QF Young Innovators Program. The family announced the move today, some 24 hours after meeting with President Oba...

As I mentioned during my VR panel at TC Disrupt last week, Bill Clinton has been messing around with virtual reality. Today, Felix & Paul Studios’ production “Inside Impact: East Africa” has hit both Oculus (Oculus Store for Gear VP Innovator Edition) and Facebook 360 degree video. For the video embedded below, hit play and drag the screen around to get the full… Read More

White House Deputy Chief Technology Officer for data policy DJ Patil is coming on stage with us at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2015. We’re excited to have him come and chat with us about his role as the first national data scientist. President Obama appointed Patil to his current position this spring. Patil was formerly the head of data science at LinkedIn but came to the White House from… Read More

When it comes to the complex world of robotics, Helen Greiner is an expert. She was one of the co-founders of iRobot, the robotics company responsible for the wonderful vacuuming Roomba robot, and she founded and currently helms CyPhy Works, which develops UAVs for search and rescue missions and bridge inspections. We’re stoked to announce that Greiner will be joining us live on stage… Read More

Square announced a powerful addition to their board today, former Brown University President, Ruth Simmons. Before her 11-year post at Brown, she was the President of Smith College, establishing the first engineering program at an American women’s college. Jack Dorsey, Square’s CEO, had this to say about Simmons in a release: Ruth has inspired generations of young people to… Read More

Manufacturing never left America. Even during the recession, good people were still building good things. Recently, though, thanks to the maker movement, small-scale manufacturing is seeing a renaissance throughout the world, something the presid...

One of the stranger things that Y Combinator has supported — among the many more interesting things they’ve started to back like prosthetic legs, macrobiotic research and Uber-for-marijuana startups — is a non-profit that built an entire political party in Buenos Aires, Argentina. DemocracyOS is a software platform that allows regular voters to debate and forward policy ideas.… Read More